Public Eye: Qantas Chairman's Lounge membership is so last month; Services Australia strike; and ChatGPT in the APS

Qantas' invite-only club was once the hottest place to be (well, hottest in an airport, at least).

It provides politicians and public service bosses with exclusive lounges where they can wait for their flights, away from us commoners.

But over the last few weeks, a number of federal politicians - including Dr Monique Ryan, and Greens MPs Elizabeth Watson-Brown and Stephen Bates - have quietly given up their memberships, following Qantas' slew of public scandals and questions around the airline's influence on government.

Senator Pocock removed mention of his Chairman's Lounge membership from the senators' register of interests on Wednesday, along with his membership to Virgin's invitation-only Beyond lounges.

The senator's office did not respond to questions from The Canberra Times before deadline around the reasons for dropping the clubs.

But while the ACT senator's decision will cost him the free food and drinks in the exclusive lounges during trips, unlike his interstate counterparts, he doesn't have to fly into Canberra for sitting weeks.

So is it really such a loss?

Staff at the APS' central agency have been checking out ChatGPT, according to data released in response to a freedom of information request. There were 642 hits to the domain openai.com, which hosts the popular AI chatbot, from Prime Minister & Cabinet devices between December 2022 and June 2023.

Don't get too excited, the FOI officer noted in their response: "As a general matter, a hit is a request for a file such as a web page, image, javascript, or CSS hosted on a web server.

"A single visit to a website may result in many hits depending on the complexity of a particular webpage, and how many resources it requires to be downloaded in order to display."

(So, it could just be one public servant, fervently clicking away?)

The federal bureaucracy is currently mulling over what to do with the explosion of AI platforms onto the scene. While they're not banned outright, interim guidance from the Digital Transformation Agency limits what APS staff can do with the tools. For example, government information can only be entered into the tools if it has already been made public or would be acceptable to be made public.

But the APS is certainly not anti-AI. A taskforce of 18 secondees from 11 different agencies is hashing out how the bureaucracy can "engage with and deploy AI in a way that is safe, ethical and responsible", according to the DTA.

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission has been on the hunt for a new chief executive officer since November last year.

But it looks as through Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus is a tough man to impress for the job.

The Australian last month reported that there have been "more than a dozen qualified candidates" who have applied for the top job, "none of whom apparently satisfied the Attorney-General".

Well, thanks to a question on notice from Liberal senator James Paterson, we now know that not only did 12 people apply for the job, but two of them were deemed suitable.

Despite this, no one was chosen and the Attorney-General asked the department to readvertise the position to a larger pool of applicants.

Mr Dreyfus didn't respond to The Canberra Times' questions. But in response to the question on notice, the Attorney-General said that "the decision on candidates for appointment is a matter for government".

Senator Paterson criticised Mr Dreyfus for the delay.

"Why did the Attorney-General fight to rip the ACIC out of the Home Affairs portfolio, only to neglect the critically important appointment of a new CEO for what has been almost a year by actively rejecting two suitable candidates?" Senator Paterson asked.

"This delay has caused a cascade of temporary acting arrangements in senior roles across the ACIC, many of which have been in place for the same length of time."

Services Australia's chief spinner says welfare payments won't be affected by a strike on Monday, as the main public sector union gets bold in its push for better pay.

Community and Public Sector Union members in the government agency (there were about 9931 as of July) will stop work for 24 hours on Monday, demanding a better APS-wide pay deal than 11.2 per cent over three years.

But the agency's general manager Hank Jongen said members of the public who can delay their business should still do so.

"We will have less staff and if you can delay visiting or calling us until Tuesday or later in the week, please do," Mr Jongen said in a statement on Friday.

"Available staff will be prioritising support to those who need immediate assistance, including people in crisis or experiencing financial hardship.

"Payments will not be affected.

"Anyone expecting payments on Monday or Tuesday will receive them as usual, and those who need to report their income will be able to do so.

"We respect that lawful industrial action is part of the process for bargaining, and we appreciate our customers' patience during this time."

The union has also threatened similar action in the Fair Work Ombudsman, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

But so far, the Australian Public Service Commission has refused to budge on pay and expressed disappointment at the move to reject the offer and take industrial action.

"While the Commonwealth remains disappointed with the CPSU's decision to reject the Commonwealth's current offer, we respect that employees have a right to take protected industrial action as provided for under the Fair Work Act 2009," a spokesperson for the agency said last week.

"The chief negotiator [Peter Riordan] remains available for negotiations with unions and employee bargaining representatives if they wish to reconsider the offer."